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Velharthis is as webcomic about Jenise, a girl who sets out from her northern backwoods home after her grandfather dies from a mysterious illness. Sword in hand, she is determined to join the army, but to do that she must journey across Tyr, a continent nervously poised for conflict. After being saved from slavers by a young man named Peter, Jenise reluctantly joins up with him after he offers his help as a guide. Unfortunately, Peter brings more trouble than either of them bargain for. Updated Mondays and Wednesdays.

In my continued attempt to not be a robot, I wrote A Thing to accompany the page posted here on December 16th. Here are my pithy words, for posterity:

I’m not super happy with how this page turned out, but it’s not that important, either.

I’m still very “meh” about the page, but I got some feedback on them which I feel deserve an explanation from me.

First off, I want to say that I wrote what I did in an effort to find something to say about a page I didn’t have any real thoughts about anyway. I was probably also tired and/or high on cough medicine. Therefore, I wouldn’t read too deeply into what I said. It’s not something I obsess over. However, now’s as good a time as any to expand a little on my thoughts on the creative process.

Not every single page of a comic has to be the most amazing piece of revolutionary work ever created. Not every piece of dialogue has to be profoundly meaningful. I get that. Everything has a purpose, and sometimes that purpose is as important as it is plain. I could go on and on about art and all the many functions and purposes it serves but I won’t bore you with the details. Let’s just skip ahead to comics.

I like to write Velharthis in 24 page chapters. Sometimes it’s a little more, sometimes it’s a little less. I can’t tell you how I came about this number but I like it. It’s also not a rule for every comic I do, just a self-imposed rule for Velharthis. And the reason I made this rule for Velharthis was to challenge myself on telling a story with only the most necessary components. So far, it’s been a rewarding challenge. I’ve learned a lot, mostly from my friend, whom I shall call C. He’s a long-time webcomic reader, and has a lot of opinions on them. One day, as he was having a look at my drafts, he commented on a page I had planned that had only about 2 or 3 panels and no dialogue.

“You’re only updating twice a week and you want me to wait several days for this? A page with no dialogue and where almost nothing happens?”

I tried to argue that art would look nice, at least, but C. was right. It wasn’t enough. And then I had an epiphany. The medium is the message. Of course, the fact that webcomics are delivered in a much different way than traditional comics changes how my audience perceives every single page. How did I not think of this before!

Limited as I am to posting two pages a week, every comic page feels like it matters a bit more posting it as a webcomic than it would if it was in a book and presented all at once. Giving the reader all the story at once gives them control of the story, but posting one page at a time changes that dynamic. A lot. Maybe. But the pressure to have all the pages work together, and within themselves, is greater when the time between their consumption is so much longer and does not conform to the wishes of my readers (For comparison, see network TV versus Netflix, and how binge watching habits have influenced the delivery and consumption of TV shows). I also lack the time to devote myself to Velharthis full-time. All this means I don’t have too much time to waste on all the things I’d love to tell you about the characters. The pages have to be models of efficiency. The dialogue has to catch and hold you. The art has to be quick but solid.

It’s a lot to think about. And all this after I told you not to read too much into what I wrote.

Returning to what I actually wrote, I hope no one reads it as fishing for compliments, or trashing my own work. I don’t find either of those activities useful. But it’s OK to be critical of your own work, as long as you’re learning from it. I know exactly what I would have done differently with the page if I had the time, but I won’t because we’re already on the second rewrite of Velharthis and I would love to finish it before I die.

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There was no Friday Roundup last Friday, and this one is going up late because it’s December and my day job (non-profit) gets hammered this time of year (in a good way) and I usually end up coming home feeling pretty wasted.

I’ve been drawing more, so that’s good. I was slipping into a funk where I disliked my work so much that it was keeping me from doing actual work. Not even sketching, and that’s a bad thing. So I draw. Because I also realized I can’t really stop anyway.

I’ve been thinking lately about this comic, mostly about what I would have done differently so far. I worry sometimes there’s things I’ve not done well enough that would stop someone from reading. But you can’t dwell too much on things like that. At least, not in that way. And if there’s enough good about the work, people will forgive the stuff that isn’t so good. At least, that’s what I tell myself.

I wish I was a better writer, but there’s only so much wishing you can do before you simply have to make an effort at actually working at it and doing it better. Nothing worth having simply comes to you… except maybe winning the lottery, but even then you still have to go out and buy the ticket.

The takeaway from all of this is that every project is a chance for learning. You get better as you create, especially if you exploit every opportunity to expand your knowledge.

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I mentioned a while back that I hoped to post more about me. Even writing it, I feel like saying this makes me sound like an asshole. However, a wise friend and long-time webcomic reader correctly pointed out that readers like the reassurance that the creator is some kind of human. You know, instead of a robot or some kind of lizard (though can you imagine the media exposure a webcomic-creating lizard could get???). So, here I am, ready to talk about some stuff.

My first draft of this installment was going to be something about the work/life balance, but it was boring and I had no focus, which also sums up my writing process most days. The reality is that the more organized you are and the less you cut corners or skip steps the better your end result will be. You’ve got to start somewhere, though, and that’s where a lot of people get tripped up, especially with comics.

I get a lot of people who ask, “How do I make a comic?” and I usually just tell them to do it. Just start drawing. But that’s not really what they’re asking, and so I elaborate. For short comics, you can often just draw a comic out and BAM, it’s done. For longer, multi-chapter comics, you’re gonna at least need some notes. I work off three documents for Velharthis: a large, disorganized document that manages the overall story, a document just for Book One, and then a script for each chapter. For the first two, I edit them as a please. Sometimes, an idea will come to me on the bus and I’ll jot it down on my phone for later.

For each chapter, I write a script that breaks down by page and by panel. I’ll usually have at least one person read it and give me their thoughts, and I take them very seriously. Chapter 6 and 7 were completely rewritten after such a reading.

Sometimes I’ll go back and reread the comic to make sure I haven’t dropped in elements and forgotten them, or something like that.

There’s no one way to prepare for making a comic. Some people might sketch out the whole thing without a script. I’ve done that before, most recently for The Ungrateful Son and The Leftovers over on Erstwhile. And there’s no set way to write a script, unless you’re working as part of a team. Then you might have to agree on some kind of direction. You might also want to write and organize your script as clearly as possible, so that, when you come back to it to finally draw the comic, it makes some damn sense. There are still many times when I come back to a script after a few days or weeks and go, “I don’t understand what I wrote…”

And if you change the script as you draw, that’s fine, too. My comics never follow the script exactly as they were written, but I do try to make sure that, if I change the wording, that I make a note of what I actually want it to say.

So, there you go: My somewhat messy comic script writing process.

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I promised to try and post more about me and the comic and other things. Since I don’t usually have a comic page on Fridays, I think I should dedicate this day to writing about… stuff. Therefore, let’s spend today talking about something and, for now, let’s call this thing Friday Roundup (until I think of something better, and if you have a suggestion for a topic, lemme know because it will make writing this thing every week a lot easier).

Today, let’s talk about: other webcomics I recently found and liked.

I don’t have a whole lot of time to read all the webcomics I would like, and that’s a shame because there is a lot of good stuff out there, and diverse, too.

On my Links page, you’ll see a list of comic collectives and other webcomics. I wanted to highlight two new webcomics that I recently added:

Fox & Willow is a fantasy/adventure webcomic with a nice marker and ink style that gives the visuals an organic but clean look. The pacing and panel organization flows well. And did I mention the hot wolf guy? I haven’t finished reading it all yet, but it charmed me very quickly. You can start reading it here.

Next Town Over is a steampunk western webcomic in rendered in full colour. The characters are visually expressive and the story tells of a compelling rivalry set in well-crafted universe. Like Fox & Willow, I haven’t finished reading it all yet, but so far it’s solidly delivered and regularly updated. You can start reading it here.

Honestly, all the stuff on my Links page is a great and in future Friday Roundups I’ll try to go into detail on the other things on that list.

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Health matters first: I have bronchitis and a mild ear infection. The only problem I have right now is some sleeping problems and one daily coughing fit. The antibiotics I’m on are also causing me to wake up feeling like I have been licking a dust bin for a few hours, which is quite possibly the grossest thing I never knew existed until this week.

I also discovered the source of a problem I’ve been having with the site for a long time: the blog title appearing on pages other than the main page. I haven’t been able to figure it out until now because I’m daft when it comes to the intricacies of WordPress. However, I’m proud to say that, in a moment of clarity, I realized you can simply ask the program to suppress the the blog header on every page but the main page. This means you won’t see COMIC NEWS emblazoned below every comic page.